Video Graphics card help

[Vesuveus]

Hi all,

I am really struggling to find a graphics card upgrade. I am just so limited in my knowledge about video cards and their specs that I don't want to make an expensive mistake.

I run a Vista machine and am looking for a graphics card that will have an hdmi output and that can display mxo in all its glory. Budget is around $200. I will buy used, but wouldnt mind spending a little extra for something new.

Anyone have any suggestions? Anyone willing to spell out graphics card specs and how they pertain to running software, specifically mxo?

Any help is appreciated.

[Static]

Rajko can probably confirm this, but his new renderer update will support newest cards.

Your video card selection will be limited by
* your motherboard (need to know what graphics slot you have)
* power supply of your tower. (some graphic cards require lots of power and a good cooling system)

Once you narrow down what you maximum limit is, look for cards that you can buy, get some general choices for low end and high end ones.

Next step would be to find a benchmark for the card and see how it performs to other cards of its class for video games.

Then look at the price and try to get the best for your buck.

Put some of the cards you are looking for here, maybe someone with some experience with those can comment if they are good or not.

[rajkosto]

Nvidia > ATI in terms of features, ATI might be best cost performance ratio for just Direct3D, but as soon as you step out of that narrow zone, you're boned (no PhysX or CUDA, bad OpenGL drivers, nonexistent Linux support, etc).

Dat price tho: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814131562

EDIT: Some PCI-E 3.0 cards WILL NOT RUN in PCI-E 1.0 slots. 2.0 ones are fine though.

[Vesuveus]

Can't find a definitive answer online. I'll have to open up the ol' desktop and check it out. Its time for a clean anyway.

I did find some good leads online. Thanks for the advice so far.

[Vesuveus]

Ok, This is my motherboard. It has 1 PCI-Express x1 slot, 1 PCI-Express x4 (x8 connector wired as x4 electrically) slot and 1 PCI-Express x16 slot.

My power supply output is 375w max.

[rajkosto]

Ugh. That thing is ancient. And PCI-E 1.0 might prevent newer cards from working.
Your power supply sucks too.

Use this power supply calculator: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
Add some capacitor wear to it if it's old, and if it's a cheap chinese one make note that they can't give out more than 60% of their rated Wattage

[bitbomb]

You may have taken that machine as far as it will go, unfortunately, depending on what you're trying to do. Anything medium to high end these days, your motherboard and power supply won't support. What I would do in your position with your budget constraints is try to find an older high end card that will work with PCI-E x16 1.0, but the power supply will still be a problem. Dells are hit and miss with power supplies, sometimes they're standard ATX, sometimes they're proprietary form factor.

[rajkosto]

Or maybe just get a cheap new AMD CPU machine.

[Xanthian]

you can pick up an entry level modern system for about £350 £400 but it will be bare bones proably

[bitbomb]

Budget constraints rule that out, I'd stick with what you've got until you can replace it.